Breakout: career track for software developers
Daniel Emmerson (EPSRC, Capability)
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Emmerson [mailto:emmers...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 03:08 PM
To: Daniel Emmerson (EPSRC, Capability)
Subject:
Developing the profession of a scientific software engineer and the
career track of software developers in academia (James Hetherington)
Name of Chair: James Hetherington
Name of Scribe: Dan Emmerson
What are the five most important things learnt during this discussion:
1. We need a label/ name for a new profession: “Research Software Engineer”
2. Creating an institution or professional Body –SSI could help, BCS
“Chartered eng.”
3. Certification needed: BCS “Chartered eng.”
4. Education: each other and UGs
5. Recognition and progression where are you based after being project
based. Industry – academic movement is helpful Industrial experience
is valuable.
What are the problems, and are there solutions?
Recognition
Where can univs. hire from? Don’t hire general programmers
Professional body helps
Training not rigorous in software methods. Better training.
What further work could be done, and who should do it?
Create a group body (at BCS) join it. Need a big group to approach
them with. ACTION: SSI needs to co-ordinate this.
Are there any useful resources that people should know about?
No See above
Roles: “research officer” – considered support don’t want to be servants
NOT permanent postdoc
Not a lab technician
Calling them software engineers is not good enough – domain specialised
“Researcher” has pressure to publish
Who can engineer change: professors have route 1 to deans
“New species” needs a name: scientific software developer
Judging success. Change the metric or make it possible to compete on
papers metric. Hard to create new metric!
At Manchester never got further than saying “not an RA”
Epsrc do recognise issues of having this new species.
New profession: “Scientific Software developer” or “Research Software
developer” “Research Software Engineer”
Could we broaden the definition to other engineers – hardware
engineers. “Research Engineer”
We’re not on new ground here. Years ago – “Research engineer”
The background is immaterial phys sci or comp sci
How to work together to make us better
Get valuable experience from industrial placement secondment
Professional body
A subgroup of BCS British computer society
Learn from US? They seem to have a career for software developers at
big national labs
Want to avoid progression of programmer to manager. want to add
technical management to programming. Don’t want to stop programming
Progression
After being a project programmer want to have a Permanent job within
department – what if you work in interdisciplinary area most people
have interactions with many depts. Central – you get isolated
everyone is paying for you.
Teach
This enables you to sell yourself to Universities
What about Industry
Value to move between industry and University. What value can you
really bring to industry without industrial experience. There is no
clear certification process – this would help to ensure trust.
Co-partnership of grants with industry
_______________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________
Pioneering research and skills www.epsrc.ac.uk
_______________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________
Kenji Takeda
As I mentioned, Microsoft Research highly values its 'Research Software Development Engineers', and other full time technical staff - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/technical.aspx
For example, Toby Sharp worked on making the skeletal tracking in Kinect a reality, working as part of the team with the computer vision researchers in Cambridge.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/tsharp/
Cheers,
Kenji
-----Original Message-----
From: coll...@googlegroups.com [mailto:coll...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Daniel Emmerson (EPSRC, Capability)
Sent: 22 March 2012 15:37
To: 'coll...@googlegroups.com'
Subject: [CW12] Breakout: career track for software developers
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Emmerson [mailto:emmers...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 03:08 PM
To: Daniel Emmerson (EPSRC, Capability)
Subject:
Developing the profession of a scientific software engineer and the career track of software developers in academia (James Hetherington)
Name of Chair: James Hetherington
Name of Scribe: Dan Emmerson
What are the five most important things learnt during this discussion:
1. We need a label/ name for a new profession: "Research Software Engineer"
2. Creating an institution or professional Body -SSI could help, BCS "Chartered eng."
3. Certification needed: BCS "Chartered eng."
4. Education: each other and UGs
5. Recognition and progression where are you based after being project based. Industry - academic movement is helpful Industrial experience is valuable.
What are the problems, and are there solutions?
Recognition
Where can univs. hire from? Don't hire general programmers Professional body helps Training not rigorous in software methods. Better training.
What further work could be done, and who should do it?
Create a group body (at BCS) join it. Need a big group to approach them with. ACTION: SSI needs to co-ordinate this.
Are there any useful resources that people should know about?
No See above
Roles: "research officer" - considered support don't want to be servants NOT permanent postdoc Not a lab technician Calling them software engineers is not good enough - domain specialised "Researcher" has pressure to publish Who can engineer change: professors have route 1 to deans "New species" needs a name: scientific software developer Judging success. Change the metric or make it possible to compete on papers metric. Hard to create new metric!
At Manchester never got further than saying "not an RA"
Epsrc do recognise issues of having this new species.
New profession: "Scientific Software developer" or "Research Software developer" "Research Software Engineer"
Could we broaden the definition to other engineers - hardware engineers. "Research Engineer"
We're not on new ground here. Years ago - "Research engineer"
The background is immaterial phys sci or comp sci
How to work together to make us better
Get valuable experience from industrial placement secondment Professional body A subgroup of BCS British computer society Learn from US? They seem to have a career for software developers at big national labs Want to avoid progression of programmer to manager. want to add technical management to programming. Don't want to stop programming Progression After being a project programmer want to have a Permanent job within department - what if you work in interdisciplinary area most people have interactions with many depts. Central - you get isolated everyone is paying for you.
Teach
This enables you to sell yourself to Universities What about Industry Value to move between industry and University. What value can you really bring to industry without industrial experience. There is no clear certification process - this would help to ensure trust.
Co-partnership of grants with industry
_______________________________________________________________
This message has been scanned by the WebRoot Email Security Service. For more information please visit http://www.webroot.com _______________________________________________________________
Pioneering research and skills www.epsrc.ac.uk
_______________________________________________________________
This message has been scanned by the WebRoot Email Security Service. For more information please visit http://www.webroot.com _______________________________________________________________
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Gorissen D.
Cheers
Dirk
--
Dr. Dirk Gorissen
Systems Architect and Research Fellow
Computational Engineering and Design Research Group
Room 2041, Building 25, Highfield Campus
School of Engineering and the Environment
University of Southampton
Tel: +44-2380-598-369
E-mail: dirk.g...@soton.ac.uk
Web: http://www.dirkgorissen.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/elazungu
________________________________________
From: coll...@googlegroups.com [coll...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Kenji Takeda [kenj...@microsoft.com]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 5:08 PM
To: coll...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [CW12] RE: Breakout: career track for software developers